


Coward

by violettavioletta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29489316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violettavioletta/pseuds/violettavioletta
Summary: When Harry yells "coward!" at Snape after he kills Dumbledore, Snape can't help but remember someone else with those eyes calling him that, years ago.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape
Kudos: 7





	Coward

_"'Kill me then', panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt, 'Kill me like you killed him, you coward-'_

_'DON'T-' screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as if he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind him, 'CALL ME COWARD!'"_

\- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, page 604

* * *

There didn't seem to be anything particularly special about the young couple strolling hand-in-hand down the streets of London. The boy was tall and handsome, with blonde hair and blue eyes and the face of a Greek God. The girl's deep brown hair was cut short into a bob, the trendy style complimenting her heart shaped face. Both had laughter in their eyes, as if they shared a wonderful secret that only the two of them knew.

An onlooker would faint if they knew what that secret was.

"James", the girl whispered in the boy's ear, the smile never leaving her face as she leaned in close, "Don't you think it would be best to check the cellars at the ale house first, as that's where they were last?"

"Oh, Lily-flower", he laughed, though he was not as good an actor as the girl, and his laugh didn't quite make it to his eyes, "Relax. I know what I'm doing." After taking a quick glance around, he added, "If we head straight there, we may draw attention. We'll have to slip inside unnoticed."

Lily only nodded, and allowed James to pull her the rest of the way there without saying a word. Death Eaters had been staking out Muggle London- for what, the Order had no idea. James and Lily had volunteered to do some recon. Sirius hasn't been crazy about it- after all, the two had narrowly escaped Voldemort twice at this point- and neither James nor Sirius were crazy about Lily going, early in her pregnancy as she was, but the Potters were two stubborn people, and had both gotten their way in the end.

At the entrance to a certain hotel, Lily stopped, biting her lip. James laughed as she stopped to pull him into the hotel lobby, as if she couldn't another second to be alone with him. She turned to the counter, ready to ask if they could get a room, when she realized she'd been tricked.

Avery.

"Evans", Avery sneered, looming James and her up and down, "and Potter, of course. Clever disguises, I suppose. But I did always like your face, Evans. _Finite Incantatem_."

Lily looked down, and her own bright red hair that went past her waist fell into her eyes- she hadn't even brought a hair tie. James, standing beside her, is similarly back to his present state.

" _Expecto patronum_!" Lily cries, sending patronuses to Sirius, Dumbledore. As she does, she sees Death Eaters begin to flood out of the hotel halls, and knows she and James have been thoroughly ambushed. She raises her wand to fight back when she sees...

" _You_ ", she cries, hatred in her voice, "sectumsempra!"

He dodges easily, of course. "My own spell, Lily?" Snape asks, a sneer on his face, though, inexplicably, still some degree of hurt in his eyes. He does not attempt to fire back at her, but even without his wand, she and James are outnumbered. She cries out as she feels herself grabbed from behind, around the waist. Her wand is quickly in the hand of who she recognizes to be Mulciber. She struggles, but to no avail, and she hisses when she feels Mulciber's hands snaking around to her front, rising to her chest.

"Jealous, Sev?" Mulciber asks gleefully, "Always knew you liked this one!"

Snape smiles, though it does not go all the way to his eyes.

"What the hell do you want?" James yells, and Lily turns to see Avery and Dolohov handling him. Dolohov laughs.

"Isn't it obvious? We want the two of you dead."

"Given up on trying to recruit us, then?" James asks tauntingly, though Lily knows he is just trying to kill time, buy the Order more time to rescue them.

"On that matter, I do not pretend to know my Lord's intentions", Dolohov replies, an evil glint in his eyes, "Though I'll do you one solid, Potter, and let you ask him yourself, once he's here!" At that, one of the other Death Eaters, Lily thinks it may be Malfoy, presses his Dark Mark, and she feels the heat from Mulciber's as it burns. There is a thick, heavy silence, and it is then that Snape finally speaks.

"Lily", he says, though he does not meet her eyes, "look. Just join him, Lily. He wants you bad, he'll protect you, he's even willing to forgive your..."

"My _what_ , Snape?" she spits back, "My filthy blood? My dirty blood? My _muddy_ blood?"

He recoils ever so slightly. She does not think she would have noticed it, had she not grown up with this boy.

"You disgust me, Snape. Disgust me. And I will never join you." At that moment, she hears the signature _pop_ of apparation, and knows her rescuers have arrived. "I am not such a _coward_." And with that, she feels a hand, probably Sirius's, grabbing her wrist, pulling her from Mulciber's grasp, and even as the room devolves into chaos, even as, just as she begins to see Order members appearing and disappearing left and right, just as she finally sees what she knows to be Lord Voldemort apparating into the room just as she herself is dissapparated away, Snape does not stop looking at her.

* * *

And so, twenty years later, when the boy with the eyes so like hers yells " _coward_ ", Snape does not run. Because he is many things, but he is not the boy he was when he stood and watched as the only good thing he'd ever had in his life was ripped from him.

No, he is not such a coward, anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't actually like this one much, but hey, wanted to transfer my entire collection. Definitely not my best work though, in my opinion.


End file.
